


Infinity in an Hour

by dottore_polidori



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Arctic Strangeness, M/M, Obsession, Self-Denial, past relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 09:17:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15531069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottore_polidori/pseuds/dottore_polidori
Summary: Hickey’s eyes were black then. A trick of the light. During the day they are clear, like glass, like the ice, drinking in the surrounding colour.Hickey and Irving spend the winter together at Beechey. A study in Arctic weirdness — regarding time, memory, colour, light.





	Infinity in an Hour

**Author's Note:**

  * For [asemic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asemic/gifts).



> To see a World in a Grain of Sand  
> And a Heaven in a Wild Flower  
> Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand  
> And Eternity in an hour  
> — William Blake, “Auguries of Innocence”
> 
> I had a thought that their being estranged lovers would give a new dimension to their odd reactions to one another: Irving’s visible perturbation and Hickey’s spite, later personalised violence.

He takes himself in hand, the ghost of Hickey nosing at his curled hair, sniffing even with a full throat. John would take his pleasure like this, drying the tears with his thumb, holding the head in its appropriate position. How it excited him, that the man be so pleased to take in his scent, no, desire for it — how he had shown him this, when he believed they had reached the nadir, and smiled with the mouth occupied.

He has this shade for company, having sent the man away.

Time is strange, in the high wilderness. It had taken him days — could one call them days, in the absence of light? To become used to the sunless winter of their first year. When leads closed, they anchored at Beechey. Three men died within days of each other, or was it more? To him it was the one event, the hours and the faces melted into one another. He can remember the names — Hartnell, Torrington, Braine — but not the order of their passing.

Three times they set out into the ice to dig graves, but he cannot remember which came first, and which ones thereafter. 

The treeless white he remembers, and the dry chill biting him through multiple layers. He remembers clenching his hand, and feeling nothing, resigned to the loss of his fingers.

What is the meaning of an hour, counted by the bell? What is the meaning of day, risen to the sameness of lamplight?

Loneliness tears at a man’s soul, threatens to unravel — what? The fabric of his reality. How he had wished for friends, to talk of anything but their duties. Anything to keep from sinking further into himself, a cheerless anchorite at risk of unorthodoxy.

Then came he — a gift provided by the Maker.

The man, Hickey, should have been no different from any other. A petty officer beneath his notice. But he had spoken to John unbidden, and looked him in the eye. John had forgotten the contents of his words almost as he said them, but held his gaze for eternity. So unaccustomed was he to being recognised, as a man and not an instrument of authority. He dwelt on this a long time, until a fellow officer caught him smiling, and asked what that was about.

Free time is a luxury reserved to the officer class, for mingling with local grandees, for sportsmanship, for plundering heathen graves. Not so in this voyage, moored as they were and are again, until the ice-melt. No man is saved from restlessness. It matters not, a man’s station or the particulars of his duties, his intelligence, his steadfastness, his godliness or animal nature. Soon or late, the darkness infects all. The sailors stalling to finish their work, and the officers hesitant to order it, dreading what comes after.

To realise themselves alone with their thoughts, and each other. There is nothing more dangerous than that.

Had his soul sensed something that he did not, as he dug about in his trunk for his copies of Euclid? Wondering — childish, foolish — whether the principles of geometry applied to a place so far removed as this. If there were anywhere — anywhere in the world that they did not, it would be here, for certain. And time — if only there were a way to measure the difference of its passage, between here and England. Commander Fitzjames’ magnetic studies did progress to baffling results; that is all can be said so far, on the odd Arctic physic.

When John entered the lower deck, clutching the book hard against his body, a man out of place, Hickey knew. “Is there anything you need, sir?” All kindness, the smiling eye. John’s heart jumped, and he went on to meet him, desperate to be seen, and also not be seen, not ready yet (will he ever?) to be laid bare before another. How many years he had practised against it, made himself to fit the required shape.

He must have fumbled — for he could not say the words out loud, not here, in front of the men. But Hickey understood, bridged the gap where he could not.

“Are you taking advantage of the standstill, sir, furthering your studies?” The man bent his neck to get a view of the lettering, an act that John found pleasing.

“Revising,” corrected John, a little too loudly, that no one should take for ignorance the persistence of interest. “I am revisiting the _Elements of Geometry_. I was wondering, Mr Hickey, whether you would care to join me? It would not hurt to have a working knowledge of the subject, should you ever wish to change profession; and the language that Euclid utilises is simple enough that I may be able to teach you.”

The dimpled smile told John all that he needed to know, and his heart was filled with joy when their agreement was sealed. There would be more surprises. The caulker’s mate was eager to learn and John to teach him; it helped that he already knew his letters. If in other respects he was found to favour idleness, the acquisition of a higher knowledge was entirely a different matter. The man’s intelligence surpassed his expectations — his memory, his eye for detail. Hickey was looking to better himself, and John was glad to be the one to provide him with the guidance that he needed.

His soul vibrated in proximity to the man, in some respects does still.

He made love to Hickey in this berth. Made him come with his hands, his mouth, his prick. (They would lie together and kiss, after.)

Here on this bed, every creak or sigh was an invitation to discovery, discovery to punishment. (Yet nobody told. Why?)

His memories are out of order, but he does recall how it happens, when they first kiss. Knees touching under the desk, grown comfortable in the presence of each other. It is late, in the sense that they have been long awake, but there is no work scheduled for tomorrow, either. Nor the day after. It is almost dark — but then, it always was — the candle near consumed to a stub, and they have just gone over the properties of the circle. They turn to face each other, having finished the chapter, and the space between them is so close that they nearly intersect.

He does not remember who first reaches for the other, and it does not matter either. (Hickey’s nose is cold. How has he preserved it from the frost?)

It doesn’t matter at all. It is innocent, the desire, the need for closer contact. It is unnatural, to live in such proximity and not have a share in love, in friendship. To take their place in the hierarchy, all other bonds be denied. But there is a reason for it to be this way: discipline, and the survival which depends on it. Men must be prepared to give and to receive orders that love would find unjust to the point of cruelty.

Hickey’s eyes were black then. A trick of the light. During the day they are clear, like glass, like the ice, drinking in the surrounding colour.

It is not in his character to protest, but oh, if they could be anywhere, anywhere but here. At least, make it so it were daytime always. It is the colour that he misses most.

He cannot even paint in the winter months, for the distorting yellows of the candle and the lamp. What he would do to see green again — to see blue, not black. Red he does not love, blooming where it should not be. A strange tint to formerly white things, spreading sickly over the brown in simile of blood. And there is the lovely head he could not miss anywhere, with that scarf, redder still, bringing out the colour, reminding him of his duties and the refusals they so require.

“Why?”

Come the spring, John ended things with Hickey. The smell of the sea was all around them before the ice did yield.

“You would draw me to your side, then cast away our friendship. That is not how a man acts.”

Strong words were thrown not lightly, but calculated for a lasting effect.

“You should be ashamed of yourself.”

He was. But not for the reasons exposed.

They are stuck in the ice again, and the Marines are joking that Hickey has taken another mate. They become serious when they see John approaching, bearing the order from above.

He must make as though he hasn’t heard. But the thought of it gnaws at him day and night. The awareness it brings of his own ugliness — the lust, but worst of all the jealousy. Why should he need to possess the man, having lived apart for so many months, ignored his searching look, the wordless pleading? It is not right. It is not just.

Hickey had wept for their loss. He could tell from his red-rimmed whiteness. John had pitied him then, even more than he pitied himself. Still, he had kept by his decision. It would be better if they stopped seeing each other. (This had needed to be said, or either one of them would have sought out the other within the fortnight. John is certain of it.) For a parting gift, he had offered Hickey his books, but the man had refused them. Far from conciliating, the gesture had hurt him, twisted the knife in the wound. So he became spiteful. Revengeful.

So germinated the seed of his rebellion. More and more would he avoid work, blame others, speak out of turn, forcing punishment on himself. In few weeks he became the man owing the most duty of the entire expedition, and this by an unreasonable margin. John had to see him every day, attending to some menial task, could not avoid him for the hours he was being made to pay. He wanted to be seen, John suspected. For all to know his pain, to become famous for it, if the reason remained a secret. At the time, John had thought that this was good — that it would teach him industry, modesty, humility. And he did eventually moderate his character, evaporated the sweetness that he’d harboured in some secret pocket of the soul. The bitterness of his heart had hardened like a resin.

Why should it matter to him that Hickey has taken another man? John Irving is his superior, no more. An officer of the Royal Navy. He had made this clear upon their parting. Then why do these half-thoughts take him to the hold, where he prowls ever the caged beast, hoping to find, hoping not to find? Ears pricked for the rustling of clothing, the hard breaths of sexual excitation.

Does he take him on his back, that they may look upon each other when they fuck? Does he give it to him better than John ever could, more potent and more loving? Does he tell Hickey that he is comely, that he is good, that he is hard and shining like a diamond? Does Hickey lay a hand on his chest when they are kissing?

The leather strap burns like a brand around his neck, hidden by the shirt collar. To carry it is his penance, to tighten the knot again, as the lost weight causes it to loosen. Hickey had whittled the cross himself, re-purposed material from his usual labours. It is the one lasting proof of their love.

(John gave him bruises. Bruises and kisses and false hopes and Euclid’s earthly geometries. They may well be useless here.)

How he beamed when John saw that it was well done. He was always wanting to be praised.

Time passes strange in the high wilderness.

It could have been yesterday, it could have been earlier today, that he convinced the man to hate him. He could reach out his hand and — what then? The lightest touch on his arm, would this be considered a transgression? An act of aggression? Would he understand, would he want to? What does John want?

He hears it then, the unmistakable gasp. He does not believe it at first. It could be anything. Laughing, weeping. But there is that rhythm that the body takes to naturally — there it is, the rocking. It could be anyone. A man grows lonely, two years at sea. Is this how the world ends? It should have ended that spring at Beechey. It is his sick mind that takes him there, to what they did, but he knows then, he has to come away from this with an answer. He must. He will die there and then, should he climb up that stair without knowing. If it didn’t end then, he will finish it now, by seeing his well-loved face — 

“Is someone there? Answer me.”


End file.
